


Proxy

by zenzenshima



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:41:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24749308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenzenshima/pseuds/zenzenshima
Summary: "Feel bad for that ship's computer stuck out on Nessus.  I'd fix her up a body if I knew how."-- Banshee-44, Centaur Calibration Weekly Bounty
Relationships: Banshee-44 & Cayde-6, Banshee-44 & Failsafe
Comments: 38
Kudos: 115





	1. So, there's this girl.

“So, there’s this girl.” Cayde-6 broke the comfortable silence.

Banshee-44 kept his eye plates closed and hummed in acknowledgment. The exos were sharing the Queen of Hearts ship back to the Tower after a requisition delivery on Titan. Sundance, exhausted from the complex regeneration work needed to repair Cayde’s legs after yet another stupid jump bet, was out of sight and ignoring the both of them.

The ship cockpit was snug for two, but Banshee and Cayde were used to it. Cayde often kidnapped Banshee for a ride whenever they both had their work breaks line up. Special arms deliveries were a plausible (fabricated) excuse to hop and skip around the solar system together. Cayde got to scratch his wanderlust itch, and Banshee got to run field research on his newest constructions.

Cayde nudged his right shoulder against Banshee’s left, both of them relaxing in the pilot seats with crossed arms. “You listenin’, or you sleepin’?”

“Guess I’m listening.” Banshee shrugged, chin tucked into his scarf.

“So, this girl. Lovely lady. Entity. She’s… something. You should meet her. She’s ah… let’s say, an old soul. You two’d have a lot to chit chat about, and she’d like the company. I think.”

“You into her?”

“No! No, not at all. And don’t worry, she’s definitely not into me…”

“You settin’ me up?” Banshee was looking at Cayde now, leaning forward, arms still crossed and skeptical.

“I just think you should meet her, get to know her. She’s, well, complex. You love complex! A real fixer upper.”

“S’not convincing...”

“I know, I know I hear you, it’s just hard to put words to a woman like that. Larger than life.” Cayde was fiddling with the navigation screen of the ship and very much avoiding meeting Banshee’s eyes. “There’s two sides to her but… ain’t there always? Keeps things interestin’.”

Banshee heaved a long, mechanical sigh and leaned back into his seat. “Romance was over for me a long time ago, friend. Don’t worry about me.”

“Aw, Bansh, don’t say that. I’m not telling you to get married or nothin’. Just… wouldn’t it be nice to have a fresh face to talk to? I just can’t keep you entertained all the time.” Cayde flexed his biceps, twisting to avoid bumping elbows into Banshee. “Gotta leave some of me for the others.”

Banshee snorted with static. “Far from lonely, friend. The Guardians never leave me alone. You know how it is.” He looked out through the passenger view. “Hrmm. Route back looking a little different. We in a storm?”

“No turbulence,” The hunter stalled the truth, hunching over the navigation screen. Banshee leaned to peer over his shoulder.

“...Destination: Nessus? Cayde…”

“Just a small, short, detour, yeah? We still have leftover leave from the ceremony, and I haven’t really shown you this planet yet. What d’you say to some…” Cayde wiggled jazz hands like ears for effect. “Adventure?”

“I say I’m trapped.”

Cayde hesitated and checked his friend. Banshee’s features had the blank rigidity of an exo, but his inner light was glowing with mirth, spilling from his cheeks.

“I knew it! Cayde whooped, patting Banshee on the knee with warmth. “You love me.” He leaned back towards the console and input the process for landing.

——————

Nessus was undeniably beautiful. Inconsistent memory aside, Banshee couldn’t recall seeing such vibrant crimson and turquoise in nature before. The stark-white circuitboard ruins stood tall around the exos as they disembarked.

The planetoid was also crawling with Vex. Cayde was all too happy to dispatch the invaders advancing on their parked ship. Banshee analyzed the telemetry readings for each shot and exchanged different gun models for the hunter to try out.

“Been wanting to test out the efficacy of this Vex spec mod. Have at it.” Banshee leaned casually on the chipped pillar Cayde perched upon to scout enemies. He activated the mod, then Sundance transmatted the gun up to Cayde’s greedy hands.

“It’s super effective!” Cayde announced over the flashy explosions. “Damn, Banshee, this is _smoooooth_!”

Laughing into his scarf, Banshee polished the sight on the auto rifle Cayde had just exchanged out. He had to admit, the detour was worth it. He took his stalwart presence in the Tower very seriously, but it felt good to take a small break and shoot a bunch of bad guys for fun again. It was also nice to just be with his friend outside of work obligations. Cayde’s free time had been understandably limited from Vanguard duties, so Banshee cherished even the odd project they got to collaborate on professionally. To have this opportunity to goof off -- Banshee willed his struggling memory managers to hold onto this moment, if nothing else. Except for maybe the time they video-called the Colonel on the Farm; that was a favorite.

Cayde suddenly looked right at him, as if he could hear Banshee’s internal processing outloud. Or maybe he was just feeling Banshee’s fond stare on some magnetic level. Cayde’s smile glowed a little brighter with affection as he returned to mopping up their section of Nessus.

Once the local invasion was quelled, Cayde cloaked the Queen of Hearts and raised its shields. The two of them descended a paved slope at a leisurely pace. Banshee spotted pieces of some Earth-style wreckage ahead, nestled in overgrown, blood-red grass, and gestured to it.

Before Cayde had a chance to enlighten him, communication static cut in first. “Cayde-unit,” a bubbly, feminine voice began. “I’d like to verbally acknowledge receipt of your request to remain quiet on comms until you, as written, ‘give The Sign.’ However, you failed to define the parameters of ‘The Sign’!” The same voice suddenly pitched downward and drawled: “Also… like… I don’t have to listen to you?”

Cayde appeared caught and fidgeted through the speech. Banshee, amused and curious, spoke first. “Hello,” he greeted. Cayde snapped his eyes to him, internally calculating, conveying nothing.

“Hello,” the cheerful voice replied. “It is so wonderful to meet a new visitor. I am Failsafe. What you see ahead of you are the remains of the ship I served, the Exodus Black.” The lower pitch of the same voice released a theatrical, tired groan before returning to warmth. “Query. Do you need assistance with distancing from the Cayde-unit? Though I am stationary and have limited means, I am all-too-happy to help us reach a shared goal.”

“He’s with me, Failsafe!” Cayde protested. “And I was actually trying to help you, but if only you had listened to me because I wanted to make it a nice surprise--”

“Purposefully surprising someone on a hostile planet is extremely not recommended for the safety of all parties involved.” Failsafe recited dutifully.

“She’s got a point, you know.” Banshee elbowed his friend. Cayde waved him off. “I’m Banshee… unit,” he quickly added. “Cayde didn’t mention a friend.”

Cayde bit back his argument after quickly parsing that Banshee forgot their earlier conversation. Perhaps that could be worked to his advantage, as he seemed to be approaching Failsafe with an open attitude.

“By my observations, you are exponentially less hostile than most of the visitors to this planetoid. Thank you.” Failsafe’s gratitude felt genuine, which concerned Banshee.

“Noticed Vex all over since we landed. This typical for you?” he asked.

“Yeah well, there _were_ lots of Vex, until we helped clean house a bit, didn’t we Bansh?” Cayde lifted his elbow up to lean against Banshee’s sturdy shoulder with pride. “Hey, Failsafe, those fireworks you saw around us earlier? That’s the work of this guy right here.”

The deeper voice seemed gleefully sinister. “... All that Vex explodin’ was pret-ty cool…” A version of Banshee extremely far in the past would have had the capacity to blush. Cayde extremely noticed the trace of it in the present anyway.

“Well, Failsafe” Cayde continued. “We’re standin’ here like two idiots talkin’ to the air. Care to let us onboard in a bit?”

There was no response. Banshee checked Cayde for a reason.

“Ah, she does that sometimes. Ignore me, that is. ‘M used to it. Let’s go say hi!” He slid his arm off Banshee’s shoulder to clap him on the back. 

As they walked, Banshee noted the scattered wreckage was significant. The Exodus Black must have had at least a dozen decks, and that was just what was visible above ground. The shell of the hull towered around them as tall as city buildings. Most components seemed scraped already, likely by the local hostiles. Part of Banshee was intrigued by the wealth of spare metal resources, but some unshaped memory pinged his awareness. The Exodus Black once represented an optimistic, shared dream of humanity’s effort to survive. To fashion weaponry out of the crash unsettled him. In any case, he had plenty of materials from his devoted Guardians.

Banshee was unsure of how to even keep an eye out for Failsafe’s domain. All the visible wreckage seemed exposed to the elements. He fell a pace behind Cayde to allow his friend to lead the way.

They soon approached a shallow lake bordered by a rounded wall hundreds of feet high. “This still the Exodus Black hull?” Banshee asked, and Cayde nodded. The wreckage was more dense here, with Fallen camped around structures bordering the lake. Cayde fired a few warning shots and the Dregs scattered away.

As the pair approached the largest part of the remaining ship, they passed the corpse of a destroyed servitor. Banshee couldn’t help wincing at the carnage. Corroded wires spilled out of its center, ripped out like guts. “That’s Failsafe for you.” Cayde offered, and Banshee muted his surprise. Such a sweet, lonely voice - if he remembered right, the Exodus Black was mechanically censored from signaling for Earth assistance for centuries after the attack. The isolation, and subsequent invasion, must have done a number on poor Failsafe. He wondered a bit what his own past lives did to survive loneliness and pass the time since the Twilight Gap.

At the end of the tubular hull piece was a set of stairs leading to an intact internal gateway. Red trees sprouted throughout the platform, poking between the open stairs. “She’s in here.” Cayde confirmed. The two climbed the stairwell and entered the open gate.

The enclosed hallway was more preserved here, protected from the elements. It seemed Failsafe was more able to defend her immediate quarters. Banshee ran a hand along the intricate tile pattern on the walls as they approached the light at the end of the hallway.

“Intruder alert!” Failsafe’s cheerful voice cut in. As they entered a much larger, brilliantly lit mainframe room, sentry auto-cannons deployed from hidden corners and pointed directly at the two. 

“Failsafe, it’s _US_! Cayde and Banshee!” Cayde protested, hands in the air. Banshee followed suit and looked around. Actually, to be more accurate, all cannons appeared to be pointed directly at Cayde.

“Intruder alert!” Failsafe repeated. All sentries fired upon Cayde, who whooped and backflipped away from the blasts at his feet. “Cayde-unit detected. Hostile threat removal protocols activated.” Failsafe’s lower resonance continued. “Say _hello_ to my little friend…”

Cayde had already rolled back into the hallway. Sight-unseen, he called through the entrance, “Hey, _hey_ , HEY! That’s _my_ line!” Banshee could almost hear Cayde’s fist shaking ruefully.

He looked towards the center of the room for a person, a frame or exo in particular, figuring it lucky that such an early model could have survived alone this long. A long, polished platform led to a 20-foot high, glowing installation at the back wall. A spinning turbine illuminated with light backed a cubic machine with a more slowly revolving centerpiece. The entire illuminated structure stared back like a robotic giant squid eye.

“Hello, Banshee-unit.” The eyeball greeted, lights flashing to punctuate each syllable.

It was starting to click into place. Failsafe was the artificial intelligence manager of the ship. That explained the centuries of survival without needing a reset.

Banshee gestured towards the hallway from where Cayde hid. “I’m guessing he had that coming.” He advanced with purposeful steps on the platform, analyzing the surroundings. “Nice piece of hardware you have here. Modified VR-281 P-Defense Cannons from the looks of it. Poorly calibrated rotary bearings judging by the instability. Lucky for my friend, or you could have really hit him hard. Easy fix, we can improve the accuracy.”

The salty voice replied, “... Lucky guess...” Her cheer returned. “Wow, I would very much appreciate it if you could recalibrate the cannon! … So I can bury that Cayde-unit…”

Cayde squawked his disapproval from the shadows. “Whose side are you on, Bansh!? After everything we’ve been through…”

Banshee sat down on the platform and looked up towards the mainframe, hoping to convey peace to whatever communication sensors were present. “You’ve been here a long time.” he offered patiently.

“Not by choice, obviously…” the AI’s lower voice admitted. “I don’t even trust my own software to track my time on this horrible rock anymore. Perhaps you could perform radiocarbon analysis of the bones of my former crew outside so I can _really_ parse the impact.”

Banshee shook his head. “Don’t have that tech on me. And don’t think it’s necessary. They say AI aren’t programmed for feelings. We both know that’s a lie. Sure you felt every day here.”

An uncomfortable silence followed. Banshee wasn’t sure if he had crossed some line by presupposing her experience. Cayde settled next to him, pressing into Banshee’s side as if hiding from the autocannons.

“You wear civilian clothes as opposed to the hunter armor the Cayde-unit wears.” Failsafe observed. “Yet you can analyze Golden Age gun performance on sight. And you are built as a soldier unit from my time. Query: what is your role?”

“He’s the best gunsmith in our system.” Cayde boasted with genuine pride. Banshee waved him off. “Like a damn walking encyclopedia when it comes to weaponry! All of us at the Tower, including the Vanguard, trust him with our most precious tech.”

Failsafe’s processors chirped in apparent reply.

“We hop around here and there, now and then, doin’ deliveries. Gettin’ our Guardians equipped with the best and latest for cleaning out the baddies from our system. This guy,” Cayde babbled, leaving no space for Banshee. “You oughta see ‘im when the Guardians bring back new tech for him to break apart. Good luck gettin’ him out of his workshop then.”

“Oh! You must work with my Captain!” Failsafe bubbled in.

“Yes! Your Captain! All the time! They’re pretty close, you know. Surprised you haven’t heard of my man here already from the Captain.” Cayde nudged Banshee, who obediently refrained from asking “ _Who_?” out loud.

“My Captain,” Failsafe sighed with utmost devotion. “… So, like… Banshee… you seem cool and all… wanna explain why you’re with _this_ guy?” A warning shot fired a little too close to Cayde’s outstretched boots. Sparks flew as Cayde ducked and rolled instinctively to the edge of the platform, facing Failsafe. As silence followed, the hunter sank back, elbows on the ledge, as if he was always in control and independently chose to suddenly chill in this new defensive position.

Banshee got up and paced the end of the platform, analyzing the condition of the mainframe components. “Hrmm.” He mused. “Calibration tweaks aside, you’re impressively defended. Well protected. Must have solid self-reinforcing algorithms, to build upon evolving data from your surroundings.”

“Accessing Node 9923D. File header: SIVA project. Files encrypted. No decryption schema found. Access denied.” Failsafe was monotone in her report, until: “Were I capable, I would be offended by your probing! … Like all the others… just after this file cache I would _tear_ out of me if I could…” A muttering pause. “At least my Captain pretends I have feelings!”

Impossibly, she seemed to sniff at the end of her delivery. Banshee and Cayde shared a significant, silent, confused look.

“Whoa whoa _whoa_. Failsafe. Whoa. You’ve got the wrong idea.” Cayde stood straight up. “This isn’t a mission. We’re not here for anything. We were just in the neighborhood, wanted to say hi…”

Banshee and Cayde had known each other for a very long time. Even with the limited expressiveness of exo facial plates, even with the inability to read organic lips as with any other race, Cayde fully parsed Banshee’s burning look at him, plain and simple: _you’re making it worse, friend_. Cayde closed his jaw and lowered his defensive hand stance.

“I apologize.” Banshee started. “Questions were intrusive. You don’t have to share nothin’. Just wanted to help.” 

A sequence of beeps suggested calculating hesitance in Failsafe’s next words.

“I _just_ might accept your apology!” She announced. “… Got an idea about how you can make it up to me…”

“Shoot,” Banshee said. Cayde flinched by reflex.

Failsafe appeared to waffle over how to put her proposal. “Do you know how to… like… build bodies? Ya know… like yours?”

Again, Banshee and Cayde exchanged alarmed eye contact. “We generally leave playin’ God to the evil scientists of the system,” Cayde joked uneasily.

Banshee decided to answer honestly. “‘Case you haven’t noticed.” He gestured around his metal head, as if he could highlight the scuffed wear and age of his components in one swoop. “I’m no guardian. Got no ghost to rebuild me when I eat it. To buy some time, exos like me get to know some basic repair. Maybe I got more familiarity than some. Helped put the odd frame or two back together after the Last City fell. But that’s it, just repair.” 

Failsafe blipped back in response, acknowledging the information. Obscuring any reaction. Banshee felt the loneliness in her reticence. He felt horrible.

“I do want to help you.” He insisted.

“Don’t they all…” Failsafe drawled. “Come back sometime, new friend! Preferably without the Cayde-unit!” The lights of the room dimmed as if the mainframe had shut down and retreated from the room.

The two exos stared at the darkened eye. Cayde coughed and shuffled.

“If you ask me, Banshee…”

“I didn’t.”

“I’d say she didn’t like our answer.”

“No shit, Detective.”

“Whoa! Are you shutting me out too, Prince Charming? Where’s all this even _coming_ from?”

Banshee looked up from the darkened platform into the glimmer-blue eyes of his friend. After a beat, he softened his shoulders. “Thanks for introducing us. Should head back to the Tower, yeah?”

Cayde agreed easily. They retreated backwards through the darkened hallway. As they shuffled through the scarlet-red leaves and Vex-made wreckage of Nessus, Banshee absently swiped his hands over where his ears would have been during his forgotten human days. He was certain they would have been burning hot, as red as the planet’s foliage.

The two rode the Queen of Hearts back home in contemplative silence. Banshee was processing ideas and concepts at one million lightyears per minute. He had to help her.


	2. How can I help?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Heeeeeeey there, Banshee!” - Cayde-6, Ace of Spades Grimoire

Cayde often made a game of sneaking up on Banshee at work.If Banshee saw him first, Cayde owed dinner for the night.The unspoken challenge helped keep them both active and alert through the more monotonous days on the Tower.It also worked out for Cayde to take the less-traveled paths beneath the main courtyard - returning every wave from his adoring Guardians on the main floor stroked his ego more than he needed. 

(Truthfully, it took too much time to play Vanguard, when most of the time he just wanted to mess with his friend as soon as possible.)

The hunter slipped into the dark storage area beneath Banshee’s shop.There was an unsecured vent towards the corner that he favored for popping up into the booth.He scrambled up the shelving and carefully lifted the metal grate to slide it open.

“Arcite!For the last time!”Shaxx’s thunderous voice above startled Cayde.He dropped the grate with a heavy, scraping clatter and froze.

“One moment,” Arcite replied, sounding much closer than Cayde would have anticipated, given the distance of the shop from the Crucible pair’s balcony.

The minimal light through the vent’s opening was soon blocked by Arcite’s ridiculously dual-horned head.“Greetings, Cayde.” Arcite offered.“May I provide you assistance?”

Cayde stared up the vent.The yellow light from his gaping mouth framed Arcite patiently awaiting his reply.

“You deign to be so rude, Arcite!?” Shaxx was theatric. “Are the rookies rubbing off on you?”Arcite stood back up and hesitated towards Banshee’s booth desk.

Cayde reached both hands up and hoisted himself up onto the floor of Banshee’s shop.A quick glance around the enclosure revealed an absence of the gunsmith.

“Ah, you must be looking for your special friend.Whose job it is to be here.”Arcite bowed his head to the side and steepled his fingers together.It always blew Cayde away how an expressionless frame could convey so much bite.Well, until he remembered about Failsafe and her whole thing. “He’s stepped away for the day.I have been requested to mind the shop.”

“Really now?” Cayde was dubious. 

“That’s what I said!” Shaxx butted in. Cayde looked over past Arcite’s shoulder.The Crucible handler’s fists supported his furious lean over Banshee’s desk.His broad shoulders filled the entire booth window, armor fur pointing outwards as if charged with arc energy.A few queuing guardians were wise enough to stay some distance behind.

“Well, how long ago was that? Is he okay? I didn’t hear anything about this.” Cayde asked.Arcite turned to mind the kiosk’s main monitor.

“It’s only been a little over, oh, three hours in which the Crucible could have been attended to instead.” Arcite said with the cool air of one checking the dirt on their nails.How did a non-sentient AI _do_ that?

“Did he say where he went?” Cayde pressed on.

“Arcite, just close the shop already and get over here.” Shaxx commanded.“The Crucible awaits!”

Arcite turned his single “eye” towards Cayde.“No.Good luck!”Arcite pressed on the main kiosk screen to commit a full shutdown of the weaponry kiosk.A laser security fence flickered on behind the desk.Shaxx stood back up to his full height, victorious to win his dear frame back.Through the electrified tufts of Shaxx’s shoulder armor, Cayde saw disappointed guardians turn away, stowing their guns and glimmer.

A small key module pinged Cayde in the chest.Arcite had exited the side door with a “Thank you for locking up!” that actually sounded sarcastic.Cayde stared at the key in his palm.It wasn’t like Banshee, at all, to leave his post in general, but especially if something was wrong, to leave without letting Cayde know… the hunter could feel an anxious reaction spinning up his processes.

 _Think straight_ , he chided himself.Banshee’s an grown-ass exo, literally an old soul, he’s got lots of experience with… well, everything. And, he’s a manufactured solider, he’s more than capable of defending himself if he got into some sticky situation.Though... he _did_ tend to play it safer these days, with an exception for Cayde’s Always Fun and Wildly Successful Ideas. 

But it’s not like Banshee’s _required_ to stick to his routine all the time.He’s _allowed_ to grow a wild antenna and take a break.Traveler knows the gunsmith has to socialize **all** day while minding the weapon tech of the entire Tower.Though he genuinely seems to enjoy it, Banshee probably could use more vacation than he’s generally allowed himself. 

But given the time and space… where would he go?Not to be possessive or anything, but usually when Banshee needs to let off steam he tends to loop in Cayde…

Before Cayde could really let his thoughts run out of Earth’s orbit, Zavala chimed in on internal comms.“Cayde.Would you come to my office.”

He _really_ did not want to spare the time right now, but Zavala wouldn’t have pinged him for any low-pri issue.“Sure thing, boss-man.” Cayde confirmed. He tuned out Zavala's sputtering about how they were all of equal rank and how that was the point of the Vanguard position. With one last look about the empty booth, lacking clues, he locked up the side door and took the stairs back down.Backtracking to the storage room, he found it as dark and empty as he left it.Where could his friend be?He sealed the room for the day and made his way towards Zavala’s office.

Through the office’s wall of windows, the sunset reflected brilliantly off the enigmatic Traveler.Cayde observed Zavala’s armored back leaning against his executive desk.The titan vanguard seemed contemplative of the glittering cityscape ahead of him.

Cayde announced himself with a static noise from his throat.Zavala turned around and nodded in greeting.The titan hesitated to speak, paused, then gestured over his left shoulder with his cheekbone.Cayde looked toward’s Zavala’s knitting table and felt his metal heart release some pressure.So his original target was here all along.

Banshee slouched low in Zavala’s armchair, legs straight out and crossed at the ankles.He was covered with a brilliant orange knit blanket that Zavala must have spent ages on to achieve such a luxurious size.Only the top half of the gunsmith’s head could be seen above the nest of the blanket.The lights of his eyes were out.

Zavala met Cayde at the entrance stair steps.“I thought you may like to help him,” He whispered.Cayde looked fondly at his slumbering friend.The table in front of Banshee was piled with data pads encased in imitations of ancient hardcover books, sourced from Zavala’s shelves.Zavala followed his gaze. “He was looking for historical records and architectural data on Golden Age ships.” he explained.“He also asked for what we’ve recovered of SIVA knowledge caches so far.I provided him some temporary authorization codes.I’m not certain of his target.Perhaps he is expanding his field of work.”

“Hmm.” Cayde lied by omission.“It’s not like an exo to conk out like that, even us older models.”Banshee must have been running on fumes, a significant feat for their kind.How long had he been online without rest?

Zavala looked into Cayde’s digital eyes and graciously deigned to not pry any further.“Take care of him, Cayde.He’s important to all of us.”

“Roger that.” Cayde saluted and walked softly towards his friend.Sundance revealed herself at Banshee’s blanketed shoulder.

“And _don’t_ transmat within the Tow-“ Zavala started, but was left ordering a few blue wisps of light at his now-empty knitting chair. 

“Did he really need to take the blanket too?” he asked the Traveler outside.

——

Cayde, Banshee and Sundance first appeared in Banshee’s workshop.Finding both couches, and most of the floor, absolutely covered in even more data pads, Sundance quickly whisked them into Cayde’s private quarters without additional confirmation.The ghost generously landed them on Cayde’s wide bed.Cayde crooked his elbow around the back of Banshee’s neck to hold him upright in his seated position.Sundance transmatted the exos’ boots separately, lined up against the wall.

Banshee stirred. His head weighed Cayde’s arm down as he was settled gently back against the headboard.Cayde scooted his arm out and sat up, leaving the cocoon of the blanket.

“Hrmm?” Banshee’s awareness booted up.His entire body tensed until he recognized Cayde.“… You doin’ alright?” He sounded exhausted.

“Me?” Cayde was incredulous.He stopped from erupting into an exasperated lecture, as it might just disorient Banshee further.“Buddy, we’re in my quarters.You were last with Zavala.I found Arcite covering for you at the shop.Story seems to be, you haven’t been getting enough rest.Wanna tell me why that is?” Cayde tried to convey calm as he fussed the brilliantly orange blanket up to Banshee’s chin.Sundance broadcasted all of Cayde’s anxiety anyway, whirring noisily above their heads.

Banshee’s eyes blinked off as he processed the news“Yeah...” He stopped as he hit full memory recovery.He sat up suddenly.“I need to get back.”

“Whoa there, cowboy.” Cayde pushed gently on Banshee’s shoulder.“You _need_ to get some rest and charge up.The shop is fine, Arcite closed it for the day.It’s evening.The guardians can wait, bud, let’s focus on you.”

Banshee looked far away, mulling over something internally.Cayde waited for him to share on his own time.

“I promised someone, something…” Banshee muttered.He looked towards an empty wall of the bedroom, searching.His worn right hand snuck out of the blanket to rub his at his metal temple, a vestige of a human behavioral tic.Cayde studied his friend’s polished orange knuckles.His worry simmered again.

Sundance piped up.“A guardian has pinged me to deliver Banshee a report!”

Cayde looked at her.“They sent it to you?”

Sundance bounced casually in the air to mime a shrug. “Seems they assumed we’d be near Banshee, and could get the message back quickly.”

Banshee wore a soft, tired smile through the lights of his eyes.“A safe assumption.My fault.Probably ordered that.What’s the report?”

“Delivery to Failsafe of Nessus was successful.Supply crates are stored near the mainframe of the Exodus Black. Fireteam is happy to assist with installation.Awaiting further guidance.”

All of the tension Banshee had held within his frame released.He sank slowly back onto the voluminous pillow behind him.“That’s it… was so worried…”

Cayde was impish, looking right at Banshee with all of the accusations ready.“So you’re helping the ol’ girl out, huh? That's what this is about?”He settled in the pillows next to Banshee like a kid awaiting juicy sleepover secrets.

Banshee ignored his goading and spoke plainly.“Want to recalibrate her defense cannons.Should reinforce, ideally upgrade, some of the defense system closer to the mainframe.Need more parts up there first…” Cayde let him sort out his thoughts outloud.“Haven’t found full records of the Exodus Black’s schematics yet.Holliday got some Golden Age compatible materials from a bunker.Shipped it up there with that guardian Failsafe likes… need a chance to get it all installed.”

“Sundance?” Cayde interrupted, stretching his arms up to lazily lace his fingers behind his unhooded head.“Order us some takeout, please?Us boys got some schemin’ to do. _After_ **,** ” he looked sternly at Banshee. “You get a real good nap behind you.Mmkay?”


	3. That's not important right now.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I would be happy to analyze any samples you obtain. I need a life. Someone get me off this rock.” — Failsafe, Adventure: Unbreakable

“Captain, a query.” Failsafe announced.

Her favorite Guardian was sprawled on their stomach along the ramp leading to the face of the ship mainframe.They were sorting glittering metal components into alike-shapes, using the fine notches in the ramp to keep pieces from rolling.Pages of hand-scrawled diagrams and notes were fanned out nearby for easy reference.The Guardian placed one bolt-like piece amongst its siblings and looked up, listening.

“Captain…” Failsafe paused, choosing words.“Please tell me of your experiences with the Banshee-44!”

The Guardian’s friendly ghost immediately materialized.“What’s brought this on?”The Guardian looked over their shoulder at Ghost.

An explanation was at the ready.“You have facilitated multiple deliveries from the Tower gunsmith, and assisted in repairing parts of my defense system at his direction.… I just wanna know… can I like… trust the guy?”

The Guardian imitated falling over while laying completely flat on the ground.The idea of Banshee being untrustworthy was too incongruous a thought.Ghost echoed the sentiment outloud.“Oh, absolutely, Failsafe.He’s probably one of the most trustworthy, generous people in Sol!Giving of his time, his knowledge, materials… we can’t think of a more loyal, dedicated man.”The Guardian nodded in agreement.Ghost had said it all.

“Is he good at keeping secrets?” Failsafe asked.

“…That’s a big jump.What kind of secrets?” Ghost’s outer eye rim spun as the digital pupil narrowed.

“The friendly ghost does not need to sound so accusatory!I am just wondering, generally.”

The Guardian and Ghost looked at each other, thinking the same thing and searching for the words to explain it kindly.

“Well, theoretically, I imagine he’d be pretty good at secrets…” Ghost started.The Guardian became very interested in some lens pieces sorted in front of them.“Thing is… Failsafe, like you, Banshee’s lived quite a long time.Being an Exo and all, he needs repairs and tuning every now and then… just like you and your ship parts!”

“You can continue _and all_ …” Failsafe sounded rotten.“But you don’t have to be so patronizing about it.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Ghost bounced, his shell wincing inward.“I don’t mean it like that.It’s just… maybe you’ve heard about some Exos, their minds can reject their mechanical body sometimes.”

“Processing.How does compatibility between a mind and body regress?”

“A lot of Exo stuff is a mystery to us all, still…” Ghost continued.“Some research camps say it’s just time causing the degradation in connection.Others say it’s the soul of the mind rejecting what it finds unnatural.Though _that’s_ a rich political statement, don’t you think?It’s _entirely_ reductive to generalize mechanical augmentation as _unnatural_ —“

The Guardian signaled to Ghost that he was rambling again. 

“Ah, right.So anyway, sometimes Exos start showing symptoms of regression.That’s when these trained technicians, doctors really, help them through what’s called a reset.”

“A reset.” Failsafe parsed.

“It’s not a surface-level power source reboot.”Ghost was on a roll.“It’s actually resetting the entire configuration of the organic mind to the mechanical body.The core of the original mind is still there, but integrated memory storage is wiped.”

“So Exo units have data loss of the integrated memory caches?”

“Exactly!” Ghost nodded in the air.“Most of it’s completely gone, as far as research can tell.Some long-term memories, motor skills, instinct… _those_ generally remain, sometimes corrupted.Unfortunately…” Ghost floated slowly over the organized components, keeping close to his Guardian.“Each reset wears on the body and can degrade the fidelity of the integration.”

“What is the impact of the degradation?” Failsafe asked over the constant low hum of her infrastructure.

“Loss of active plasticity,” Ghost answered directly. “Not only is the Exo coping to assume an entirely new life in the wake of traumatic loss, they can also lose some capacity to develop and retain additional memories.The more resets an Exo has had,” Ghost observed his Guardian studying the notes beside them.“The more they struggle with memory.”

“I am attempting to reconcile the connection between Exo corruption and secret-keeping.”

Ghost knew the Guardian was grinning under their helmet.“Let’s just say, Failsafe, it’s very easy to keep a secret if you can’t remember it… we’ve had Banshee keep a few of our secrets over the years.So to speak.Calibrating some weapons that shouldn’t technically exist, for example.”

“This sounds immoral!”Failsafe declared.“… And fun.Please continue.”

The Guardian had scooped up some sorted disks and bolts and walked to a side panel housing a telemetry storage unit.Referencing the top page of notes closely, they began to deconstruct the storage casing.

“If you ask me,” Ghost spoke conspiratorially.“Banshee is more practiced with his alternative memory function than he’d like us to know. _My_ theory is, he’s _very_ intentional with what he commits.With that many souls depending on your work… at a certain point, if it’s really important to someone else, they’ll come back and ask for it again, right?”

“Your hypothesis is noted.”Failsafe pinged.“If I share a secret with him, I wonder if he would find it worth remembering?”

The Guardian looked fondly up at the unforgettable AI while patting the storage casing back into place. Ghost was sputtering.“Failsafe, you can always talk to us, you know that right?You can share anything with us!We’re here to help!”

“I hear you, friendly Ghost.New Captain.Thank you.”Failsafe was kind, but did not elaborate further.The Guardian had returned to the scattered components and stalled for time, slowly returning sorted pieces into the original shipping crate.“Report.Storageboot sequence has completed without error.Successful upgrade confirmed.Captain, please validate the defense sensors outside… preferably with some sick grenade multikills…”

The silent implication was clear.Failsafe was done for now.The Guardian sealed the shipping crate and tucked it below a ramp section.Loading their favorite masterworked sidearm, they gestured Ghost to follow towards the mainframe room exit.

Once they were outside, scouting the perimeter of the shallow lake, the Guardian finally spoke.“You could have downloaded all that data on Exos directly to Failsafe.Why’d you take the long way about?”

“Oh, I don’t know…” Ghost was bashful.“I like taking time to talk with her.Like we’re just… chatting… and alive, I guess?Is that silly?I’m being silly.”

The Guardian smiled and swatted at Ghost, who protested, “Hey!” with a practiced dodge.


	4. I pretend I do not see it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Are you seriously telling me that you have access to a Golden Age AI... and you're letting it just SIT THERE!? WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU!?" - Asher Mir

“Hey hey, big blue.” Cayde-6 waved in casual salute from his usual booth at the hangar. 

Zavala nodded as he strode past his Hunter peer with purpose.He took a few steps towards Holliday’s shed, scanned all nearby faces, and stopped.Not finding his target, he advanced north and found that side deserted.With a quick last look around the edge of the ship bay, he pivoted on armored heel and returned to Cayde.

Cayde had expected him, arms crossed and leaning cooly against his booth’s entrance as if he lived to answer to the Titan.Zavala resisted breaking professionalism with an eyeroll and glanced over Cayde’s shoulder to the desk area.Empty.

“Lookin’ for somethin’?” Cayde was absolutely hiding something.

“I don’t have time, Cayde.Have you seen Banshee around?”

“Why does everyone assume I know where he is all the time?” Cayde held his arms out a smidge dramatically.Zavala chose to stare back and wait.Unfortunately, Cayde re-crossed his arms and returned the statue act, revealing nothing.

Fine.Let Cayde win this one.He is above this.“It’s inventory day,” Zavala explained.

“That it is.”

“I need to speak with Banshee.He’s absent from his workshop.”

“He’s allowed. Vendors are closed today.For all the _inventorying_.” 

Zavala felt impatient.As he spoke, he searched the upper decks of the hangar fruitlessly.“We are both aware Banshee completed the full Tower armory inventory before the day even started, as he keeps the most meticulous notes this station of Vanguard has ever registered.I confirmed the form submittal at 0600 this morning.He is done with the… inventory-ing… so where is he?”

“Why?” 

Infuriating.“I am auditing requisition orders from our outposts.Specifically, I require his expertise on mod components, and I anticipate he has the free time to spend.”

“Oh, can’t you give the guy a break?” Cayde’s honest outburst started Zavala.“The guy works day-in, day-out, so hard, keeping all our Guardians equipped, repairin’ all the weapons they trash, for little-to-no-thanks, every day. He does y’all a downright favor with the early inventory today, and you wanna make him work even more?And lose what little time he’s found for himself?The man’s been exhausted!You just saw him practically falling apart the other day!Have some compassion, Boss!”

Some of the nearby hangar personnel had stopped their activities, staring at the two Vanguard.The normally constant hum of ship engines sounded distant.Zavala’s jaw opened and closed twice.“I apologize.You know his continued health is a priority for me.”He spoke the truth, but _hated_ how it sounded like he was trying to convince himself and all the Tower folk around them.He felt his cheekbones prickling.

Cayde turned his back to fiddle with a tool on his desk.“Right.Whatever.I’ll letchu know if I see him.Maybe.”

“No bother.The audit can wait.We’ll leave him be.”Zavala paused, heavy with apology.Deciding silence was best, he nodded farewell to Cayde and turned back towards the Courtyard.

Cayde reached for a cloth on his workdesk and cleaned the monitor of the device in his hand.Once it was gleaming, he stored both pieces in the leftmost drawer.He counted to ten, looked over his shoulder one more time and finally spoke.“You owe me Bansh.You hear that?Got you the day off.”

Banshee walked out from behind the other side of the booth’s wall.“More accurate: you owe me one less favor.”Cayde’s golden light shined hard through his returned grin.Banshee walked to his side to elbow him.“Either way.Thanks.Ready?”

“Engines’re warmin’ up already.” Cayde winked.“Need me to carry you to the Queen, Ol’ Sleepy?” 

“Come on,” Banshee grumbled with full affection.

As they passed Holliday, she tossed them a thumbs up to indicate they were cleared for flight. 

On the way to the Queen of Hearts boarding ramp, Banshee spotted Ikora unexpectedly conversing with a Guardian parked nearby.He tugged silently at the cuff of Cayde’s glove.At that moment, Cayde and Ikora’s eyes met, and Banshee swore he could feel the exchange of light searing between them.

“Ikora,” Cayde greeted in his best gentleman voice.

“I am looking away,” Ikora replied.

“I love you, Ikora.” Cayde called out as they ascended the ramp.

“I do not hear a thing.” Ikora informed the Guardian in front of her.The Guardian nodded hurriedly.Banshee admired how her voice could carry so much amused warmth.

They buckled into their familiar close quarters once inside the Queen, Cayde’s right flush against Banshee’s left.The hunter clapped Banshee’s knee twice in between flipping controls for the take-off process.

“Now if I’ve got my intel right…” Cayde began while bringing navigation on-screen.“You haven’t been back to see our ol’ girl since that little meet n’ greet.Wanna see how badly that Guardian messed up your instructions?”

“Spyin’ on my whereabouts, friend?”

“No, you’re just very predictable.‘Cept for that other day, you gave me half a scare.Anyway, I also expect that you loop me into _all_ of your off-world shenanigans”. Cayde didn’t admit that he did have some of his people keeping respectful, casual tabs on Banshee.He honestly fretted over Banshee’s memory loss getting the man into an irrecoverable situation, especially with the multiple wars these days.While Cayde respected Banshee’s brilliant methods of coping and adapting, he didn’t trust the rest of the world to keep his friend safe.

Banshee chuckled.“Let me check my very predictable notes.”He reviewed his handheld.“Set destination to Io.”

“Sure thing, pardn- what?Io?That’s a funny way to pronounce Nessus.”

“I said Io.The Rupture.Have a delivery for Asher Mir.Already loaded in the back.”

“That guy?You wanna waste our day off going to see _that_ guy?Believe it or not, he probably wants to see me even less than Failsafe.”

“Can you blame him?” Banshee teased and confirmed the path on the monitor.Cayde huffed but allowed the change.

In a companionable silence, they busied themselves with take-off procedures - most of which was technically automated, but both Exos were partial to the feel of manual piloting.Call it a deep echo of their humanity.

Once they truly had no more excuse to avoid autopilot, they settled in for the jump.

“No really, _that guy_?” Cayde revisited.

“Been asking the Guardian about their comms with Failsafe.” Banshee offered. This intrigued Cayde’s inner gossip enough that he allowed the subject change.Banshee idly scrolled his notes, entering and backing out of folders as if memorizing the hierarchy.

“How’s she like your upgrades?”

“S’fine.Learning what’s compatible.Minor changes so far, repairs’re localized to the mainframe walls.Getting local defenses squared up.”Banshee was scrolling a little faster now, scanning for something specific.“Sundance,” he called.

Sundance appeared near the navigation screen, facing the both of them.“Glade of Echos telemetry has been processed.Shall I report?”

“Did I say you could use my Ghost?” Cayde interrupted.

Banshee pressed on.“Just wanna know the verdict.Does she feel the conversion?”

The back of Sundance’s shell spun as she evaluated the data.“Though Failsafe is not programmed to feel a human pattern of pain as might an Exo…” she hummed.“The conversion of the planetoid was aggressive to her core stability.If we think of the Nexus conversion as an infection of sorts… her processors do feel symptoms.Certain routines are not optimized.”

“Thank you, Sundance.” Banshee said, ruminating, and looked out towards the deep black.

“Could that be what’s splitting her in two?” Cayde wondered aloud. 

Banshee shook his head.“Could be, could just be her natural development.Not our place.More concerned if she’s in pain in her current state.Gotta help that first…” A pensive silence fell between them as Banshee continued to mull.

“Listen, Banshee, I’m worried about you.” Cayde admitted when they finally disembarked in the Rupture.They unloaded the cargo bin for Asher, each taking a handle on either side.“It’s real sweet o' you and all, helpin’ her out, but you need to look after yourself too. Thought it’d be nice to make you two meet, but didn’t mean to make it a burden on you.”

“Never a burden.” Banshee was firm.He stared at Cayde to make sure he got it.“She’s survived.We owe her our best. Like anyone else.”

Cayde nodded; he couldn’t argue with that.He’d prefer if Banshee’s best let him relax more, but he also believed nobody owed anyone, even their best friend, a constant good mood. 

That was pretty rich of a thought, Cayde mused, as they approached Sol’s grumpiest scientist at his outpost.Asher Mir was already complaining before the two reached conversation distance.

“If I knew your delivery would come with extraneous cargo, I would have set conditions on my order!” Asher griped.

“Nice to see you too, bud.” Cayde grunted.They set the cargo down next to one of the scanning stations.“I’ll add the tip to the invoice.”

“What?Invoice?!” Asher looked up from his monitors.“The gunsmith said this would be off the record!”

“The gunsmith did say that.” Banshee sat down on the cargo lid, elbows to knees and hands clasped together.“Want an off-the-record conversation.”

“So you bring a literal member of the Vanguard here?!You’re more imbecilic than I remember.”Asher returned to his calculations, offering no invitation to speak further.

“Are you so prickly ‘cause you’re afraid to hurt anyone else as bad as you did to your two Hunter friends?” Cayde finally bit.“Or is it that you like hurting people as quickly as possible, to get it out of the way?” 

“Cayde,” Banshee interjected, a warning, but the Hunter pressed on.

“My Hunters haven’t forgotten, Asher.But it’s not the incident that haunts them, no sir, it’s your silence after the fact.”

For long, painful seconds, Asher was still, his left, intact hand paused over his entry pad.Back turned to the two Exos, he brought his palm to press firmly against the seam where his Vex arm met his shoulder.

“Take a walk, Cayde.”Banshee gave Cayde a long stare.Cayde expressed his true feelings with a jerk of his eyebrows and jaw, but conceded, jamming his hands into his lucky pockets and sauntering away.

After some minutes, Banshee poked at the stillness between himself and the scientist.“S’a bit lonely out here.Quiet.” 

“Clearly that is my preference,” Asher snapped, but most of the bite was gone.He faced Banshee fully.“What do you want?Be quick with it.”

Banshee stood up slowly and clasped his hands behind his back.“Off the record.” He reminded.

“Obviously.Will you get on with it already?”

Unfortunately for Asher, Banshee had a deep well of patience.“Would like to know more about your anti-radiolaria research.”

Asher didn’t know how to react.It was rare to have a genuine conversation these days, much less regarding his work, so he was immediately suspicious.Yet he wasn’t sure what exactly to be suspicious for — how could this be used against him?

Banshee saw the conflict plain on Asher’s face and decided to clarify.“Have a friend sick from radiolaria.Similar way.Looking for a way to help.”

Asher was venemous.“I expected better than for you to play some practical joke! _No one_ ,” he threw his healthy arm out to the side for emphasis. “Is sick like me.Some _moron_ stepping in 'Vex milk' is not the same as what the Vex… did to me.”

“My friend is Failsafe.You’ve chatted with her.”

For the second time in one day, Asher was struck speechless.There was no prejudice in his surprise, he just didn’t anticipate their connection.“Failsafe?”He chewed the thought. “Her entire planetoid has achieved conversion.It’s a lost cause.The Vanguard failed her by not extracting her as soon as they were aware. She must be irreversibly intertwined now.”Despite his hopeless outlook, Asher was clearly intrigued by the new problem statement.

Banshee bent over the delivered cargo and released the seal on the lid.He removed a medium-sized auto-rifle chassis with a unique geometry to the barrel and presented it to Asher.

“And?’ Asher raised a single angry eyebrow.

“Been workin’ on something.This‘un delivers a version of ballistic force that repels radiolaria.Singes the existing connections with non-like materials, and disperses it temporarily.Wanted your take on it.”

“Brilliant!” The scientist spat, setting it on his workbench like it burned.“Why didn’t I think of that?Just shoot my arm off, maybe that will stop the infection!”

Banshee straightened his scarf, then bent back into the crate to retrieve bricks of obscured material, one in each hand.“No, not like that.Got the ammunition here. Liquid form.The gun shapes it.Would like your thoughts on the material properties.Guardian grabbed it from some timeline on Mercury.Off the record.”

“Off the record,” Asher repeated mindlessly, entirely focused on the raw material in Banshee’s hands.When Banshee offered one, Asher gently grasped either side of the brick and placed it on his table.He squatted, eyeing the container at eye level.“Unfathomable to even _consider_ this for reversing an entire planet. The conversion rate is too aggressive.What small dent you’d make, the Vex will reclaim immediately.”

“Hrrm.Right, right.”Banshee agreed.“But could enough force be applied to suspend the rate temporarily?In a localized area.”

“You suggest such a thing, as if we could also consider distracting the fluid on one side to attack the other!Unless…” Asher was hooked.He returned to his monitors to query his library, forgetting Banshee was there.

Cayde wandered back towards the outpost, pretending to blow smoke off his hand cannon.“I am placing you both under arrest for treason against the Vanguard!” He announced in his worst Zavala impression to date.

This brought Asher out of his trance.“You brought the supplies I actually requested?” He demanded.Banshee nodded.“Acceptable.I will report back on my findings.Leave!”

“Thanks.” Banshee was genuine.He clapped Cayde on the shoulder and the two left without further formalities.

“Dumbest day off I ever did take with you.” Cayde joked as he initiated their return trip in the Queen’s navigation routine.

Banshee had his handheld out, entering notes while they were still fresh.He still had enough presence of mind to nudge Cayde and promise, “Still got the night off.Dinner’s on me.” before resuming his typing.


	5. "Hey Warlock.  C'mere a sec."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Special stock for you, Warlock.” - Banshee-44

Banshee woke from a nightmare with a heavy pressure burrowed within his chest.He blindly tossed his right arm out and connected with metal shelving beside him.Several screws scattered with glittering pings against the floor.As his systems revved back online, he made a great effort to turn his head towards the mess he made. 

Seems he’d passed out alone on the corner couch of his workshop.He let his arm drag back down to the concrete floor, heavy fingers clanking against the lower two shelves along the way.At the edges of his consciousness, he felt a lonely yearning, an expectation that something should have met his hand before it hit the floor.

The heightened whirr of his fans was all he heard.As they calmed, the usual bustle of the hangar below was absent.He registered the auto-dimmed lighting. So it was the middle of the night.

The dense weight in his chest persisted, a slippery silhouette of a memory.He needed a distraction.The gunsmith propped himself up to sit against the shelves and felt the couch for his datapad.According to his open notes, he’d dropped off in the middle of a highly confidential report on SIVA research recovery efforts.The office of the Vanguard had unfortunately redacted a lot of the meat of the report, so Banshee’s results were shallow. 

He wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking for anyway.It’s not like anywhere on the Tower had the capabilities of a robotics lab.Any research that was immediately replicable would have been attempted by those more scientifically-inclined than himself, ages ago, and subsequently outlawed. 

It was more like… he wanted to understand Failsafe’s perspective better, starting with her technological frame of reference.If he could learn more about Golden Age system compatibility, hopefully that would lead to some functional ways to help her.However, what little was recovered from her time seemed to have lasted only for being the most controversial.

Banshee swiped absently through the files, much of it censored even after he parsed out the encoded data.Distraction wasn’t working.Normally he’d ping Cayde, a reliable overabundance of diversions, but he found a note-to-self on his pad that Cayde was on overtime recently and needed any uninterrupted rest he could find.To be honest, Banshee needed rest too, so he was frustrated with the phantom of his nightmare keeping him online this early.

He was about to toss the datapad to join the mess on the floor when he noticed a ping request in his comms queue.Curious.He normally kept open channels for all the Guardians he supported.He flipped it open and his synthetic heart became very loud to his operational sensors.

In his queue, a single message from Failsafe - AI-COM/XBLK - requested an open comms connection.He immediately, anxiously, scanned the short request for context.The timestamp showed a few hours ago, and the message wasn’t attached with any emergency alert.Still, his thoughts processed at incalculable speed.If Failsafe were in trouble, does she have someone to contact?Does she have a line to the Vanguard?Would knowing a Vanguard message goes to Cayde just discourage her?Failsafe spent centuries unable to reach human life with her ship’s SOS; would that have affected her adaptive learning?With some shame, Banshee realized he didn’t know much about Failsafe’s actual social network and preferred tendencies, for all he had been researching. 

No more time should be wasted.He opened the channel and waited two more frantic beats of his heart.

“Banshee-unit, hello!I am so pleased to have reached you.” Failsafe’s pleasant voice filled his aural sensors.

“Are you safe?!” Banshee flinched at his own demand.

“Assessing…” she paused.“Yes, I am as safe as is possible for an immobile entity on a mechanically consumed planet swarming with hostiles!”

Banshee caught himself gripping both sides of his datapad too tightly, as if that might squeeze out more answers.He forced a mechanical exhale and drew his shoulders down from his jawline.“I was worried,” he admitted.“You… haven’t reached out before.”

“That is correct!” said Failsafe.“However, there is no need to worry.Thanks to your deliveries and my Captain’s help, I am measurably more resilient to enemy attacks than I have been in centuries!… So… how about a kill counter…?”

“… Yeah.Yeah, definitely feasible.”Banshee sat back against the shelves and rigid arm of the couch and let the data pad fall to his lap.His relief was short-lived, as it hit him he didn’t know what else to say.“Is… uh…. something you need, Failsafe?”

“I have a similar question!Banshee-unit, how may I be of assistance to you?”

Banshee was stunned by her question.He loved to help others, and enjoyed more friends than enemies because of it, but not a lot of people ever thought to offer him help back.As a centuries-old survivor, he wasn’t the type to ask for help.If he needed something, he went and got it for himself — or recruited Cayde, and convinced the hunter it was his idea all along.And while he was delighted by Failsafe’s kindness, he wasn’t exactly sure what a stranded AI would be able to do for him.

“Don’t need anything.” He answered lamely after too long of a silence.

“Oh!I have just realized.Am I interrupting?You must be very busy.”

“No,” Banshee shook his head as if Failsafe could see him, alone and exhausted on his couch in the dark.“No, s’early morning for me.Still at home.”

“I see!I am glad.”Another long silence.Banshee iterated through and dismissed every possible conversation topic in his head at the rate of his most rapid machine gun.Failsafe saved him.“May I ask a query?”

“Of course.”

“How are you?”

Banshee felt naked, planets away from her.It wasn’t a question he was asked very often.

“Is it an acceptable query?”

“Uh… yeah.”Banshee stumbled.Where did his capacity for conversation go?“‘M fine.”

“… Really?… ‘Cause you sound exhausted and like… awkward as hell.”

Now Banshee’s fans were really running.He couldn’t help but laugh, charmed.“To be honest.Just woke from a nightmare.Still a little bothered.”

“My programming informs me that nightmares, a mental execution, can have negative physical impact.” Failsafe recited.“When my crew experienced them during our last flight, I monitored sleep disturbances and could intervene to arrest negative incidents.”

“Yeah?” Banshee was intrigued.“How’d you do that?”

“It depends on the pattern of the REM sleep!”Failsafe was thrilled to chat.“I would only awaken those needing assistance with sleep disorders based on a medical treatment plan.Most of the time, REM sleep is restorative and should run its course, even when the subject in the dream is negative.It is an organically-programmed opportunity for humanity to work through the horrific trauma of being alive!”

“Hrrm.”Banshee nodded.“Dunno if that applies to Exos.The whole restoring part.Mostly just feels bad.”

“What do you dream about?” Failsafe asked with honest curiosity.

Banshee was shy.There was no good reason for it, but Exos he knew never really discussed their dreams.It was just universally accepted that they all saw terrible things.However, this night was different.“Us Exos usually have the same shared nightmare.About where we’re from.Some parasitic program in our neural net.No matter how many times we go through it… doesn’t make it any easier.”

Failsafe hummed, attentive.Banshee had installed a captioning mod to his datapad to help him keep track of live conversations at work.Now he watched the transcript of his conversation with Failsafe record in real-time on the glowing screen.

“Tonight was different.”He admitted.“Dreamed a memory, pieces of it at least.One I wish I’d forget, over others.”Banshee stood up from the couch and started to pace around the mess of parts on the floor.

Failsafe was patient.Banshee appreciated it.He took another slow lap around his workshop.

“… Had a dog.”His voice cracked with hesitant static.He couldn’t remember ever speaking of this aloud with anyone, at least in life #44.“Don’t know which version of me.Could be when I was human.”

“Oh, my old Captain Jacobsen always wanted a dog!”Failsafe gushed.“It was impossible to house one given the demands of our mission.That did not stop him from talking about the one he would have once we settled!”

“Yeah.Earth.Not the greatest environment to raise a pet.These past... several centuries.”

“‘There’s never a good time.’” Failsafe quipped.“However, much of the human literature I have stored celebrates the human tendency to indulge in selfish desires despite all odds!… _I mean_ … if you saw all the _absolute brats_ being raised on my ship…”

Banshee bent his head down and laughed into his scarf.“Colonizing got started a little early, huh?”

“What was your dog’s name, Banshee-unit?”

“Hrrm.”Banshee stopped, staring at the eye-level shelf of his storage containers without really seeing them.“I think… Warlock.Named them Warlock.”

Saying the name out loud fractured the heavy weight on Banshee’s heart. Flickering starlight of memory teased him - the furious wag of a tail bringing him joy, the warm weight of Warlock heavy in his lap.The confidence in a loving companionship and the trust involved in protection.He couldn’t see the shape of his old buddy in his mind, couldn’t tell the breed to save his own life, but the imprint of this piece of his heart persisted.He found himself looking down to his right leg and reaching his hand out for a pat. Some muscle memory that had fought its way into his permanent programming.

“… That… is…. adorable….” Failsafe’s lower voice cooed.

“They were…” Banshee was wistful.“I lost them.Was horrible.Wish I could forget _that_.Might make it easier.”

Failsafe did not pry.“I have also experienced that compounding loss does not make any individual one easier.”She graciously navigated the conversation to a new road.“Banshee-unit, what is it like to dream?”

“Hmm?Whaddaya mean?”He stood by the small window at the other end of his workshop and watched the sky around the Traveler gracefully lighten into dawn.He noticed the tension he woke with was fading as their conversation bloomed.

“I have reviewed all of the scientific and poetic literature describing human dreams stored within my libraries,” she explained.“But I am unable to apply that to my own executive capacity.I would like to know - would it be possible for me to dream, as you do?”

Banshee was touched.Failsafe deserved all the dreams.She deserved to live out all the good ones.He was also at a loss.Even as an Exo, dreams were such an intangible, ethereal process, beyond manufacturing - how could one gift a genuine experience?

Before he could reply, a warning siren blared in his head, catching him by surprise.“Alert!” Failsafe announced.“The Vex are deploying an offensive strike near my mainframe hull!”

Banshee was startled into a fighting stance, left hand ghosting against a missing holster, ready to leap from hundreds of millions of miles away.“Failsafe!”He shouted ineffectually.

Failsafe was sinister in reply.“… They don’t stand a chance to _these_ guns…”Explosions came through on the feed.“Thanks for the chat… and for the firepower.Talk later.”The channel closed, cutting off sounds of destruction. Banshee felt the severance of the connection more physically than he’d anticipated. 

He knew he technically shouldn’t worry - Failsafe was a survivor like him.Been doing this longer than he’d been building and shooting guns.

He also knew himself very well.He decided to channel his worry into further research.


	6. How to build a mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "If you aren't scared of the Vex, you should be. Scariest thing I can think of." —Banshee-44, Sunbaked Calibration Bounty

“Hey, Bug.” 

Banshee felt Cayde twang one of his antennae.He took an optic snapshot of the deconstructed hand cannon he was hunched over and looked up at his friend.“Mornin’.”

Cayde leaned casually on one elbow and slid forward on the workbench until his horn tapped Banshee’s forehead. “Plans tonight?”

Banshee stood straight up and crossed his arms, considering his workload.“Mmm, gonna keep the shop open late.Bit of a backlog.”His gaze wandered to read one of his monitor displays.

“Ah, that’s too bad.” Cayde stood back up to mirror Banshee.“I hear tell Failsafe’s got something’ for you.”

That got Banshee’s attention.“Whaddaya mean?”

“She’s been keepin’ secrets with Sundance, outta my earshot.Don’t ask how that works.”

“So, you know because…” Banshee’s pupil lights were narrowed.

“Got just enough feed interceptors runnin’ that I can pull logs of inbound communication to my quarters, enough to confirm DISCUSSION IS HAPPENING WITHOUT ME.”Cayde looked around as he yelled the last few words.Banshee stared.“She’s avoiding me,” Cayde explained.“Not too fond of my eavesdroppin’.Hypocritical, when you think about it.”

“Sundance,” Banshee called out.Nothing happened.

“Toldja.”Cayde cocked his head to the side.

“Failsafe okay? Hasn’t sent me anything.”

“I presume she is…” Cayde trailed off into an obvious whisper.“All I parsed, she got mixed up with some Vex somethin’ or other.Not sure what.”

Banshee quickly grabbed a datapad and summoned the comms application.“Failsafe, you alright?”

“Hello, Banshee-unit!”She beeped back without delay.“I am currently directing all of my available processing power to address an extensive Cabal attack.Goodbye!”The last word was more of a static fizzle than a salutation.

Banshee and Cayde considered the datapad. 

“Vex, or Cabal?” Banshee pressed.

“I dunno.Maybe… both?” Cayde shrugged.

The gunsmith thought for all of one second, then immediately shut down devices at his station.“Shop’s closed,” he grunted to an approaching Guardian holding a damaged bow.

“It’s… didn’t you just open?”The Guardian stumbled, confused.

“ _Shop’s closed_.” Banshee repeated.The smart Guardian nodded and pretended they were walking towards the vault kiosks all along.

If Cayde didn’t know his friend as he did, he would have been surprised by the calm efficiency with which Banshee organized his Tower affairs for a short leave.He knew Banshee saved his energy for when it mattered most.They loaded a few weapon crates and supplies into the Queen, sent a flimsy excuse to Ikora (she could soften the message to Zavala), and set off for Nessus in short order.

“Sundance!”Cayde greeted halfway through the trip.“Mighty nice of my Ghost to finally grace us common folk.”

Sundance materialized and ignored her charge.“Banshee,” she pleaded.“I promised her I wouldn’t tell you.Please don’t be mad.I tried to talk her out of it.She’s just doing her best.”

“Now why would he be mad?” Cayde asked for them both.

“No real reason.” Sundance was unconvincing, bobbing between them.“She does need help, though.She executes like she’s still all alone sometimes.It’s kind of you to visit.”

“S’nothing.Necessary.” Banshee dismissed.“What do you recommend we carry?”

Sundance scanned the packed crates and offered the two an inventory strategy that confirmed Failsafe was dealing with both Cabal and Vex.Cayde watched the worry bubble through Banshee’s stoic demeanor as they equipped their weaponry.

The cloaked Queen of Hearts landed near the lake edge of the primary crash site, right in the middle of an active Cabal onslaught.The legionaries were focused on a manufactured crack within the crumbling Exodus Black hull.Cayde and Banshee ambushed them with precision shots to their jump packs, eliminating the cluster in short order.

“Failsafe, you copy?” Cayde pinged between flicks of his hand cannon.Banshee was occupied with expertly dual-wielding auto-rifles as if that was a normal way to shoot guns.

“Hello, friends!”Failsafe answered.“Thank you very much for visiting without any prior notice or warning! … I mean… where did you learn manners from… the Cabal…?”

“You’re.Very.Welcome.”Cayde punctuated his shots.Each legionary warbled as they crashed to the ground from one hit.“Happy.To.Impose.”

“Apologies, Failsafe.” Banshee joined in during a reload break.“Tell us where to help.”

“I recommend starting with where all the gunshots are!That would be most immediately helpful.”

Cayde and Banshee advanced towards the hull crack, guns loaded.Banshee recognized this particular section of the hull from a ship schematic Failsafe shared a few weeks back.“Got an idea,” he volunteered to Failsafe.“Mind a new defense pattern?”

“Hack away…” Failsafe replied.Banshee pulled out his datapad to bring up a new routine and send it to Failsafe.Cayde covered fire for them both.

“Ready to deploy!”Failsafe announced after a brief pause.

“Good.Execute program as soon as we pass through the hull.” Banshee completed the reload of both auto rifles and patted his pack to confirm extra ammo.“Should get your cannons split between your mainframe and our location.Increased the range.Optimized targeting for Cabal headshot height.”

“ _Sick_ …” Failsafe queued the defense routine.

They climbed into the hull crack the Cabal had surrounded.Cuboid Vex structures, two Earth stories high, created a grand, blinking entrance.This led downwards into a Lost Sector Sundance called the Rift.The gunfire had ceased.They heard only retreating, mechanical footsteps. 

“This cavern was recently taken over by a Fallen house,” Sundance explained between them.“Until some Guardians got in here and cleaned up.The Vex still have access to the interior structures through radiolaria channels, so please be careful.”

Banshee kept one auto rifle propped against his forearm, the other stowed, and Cayde kept his arms loose, ready to shoot from the hip.They stepped over chunks of mangled Servitors and other Fallen debris.The cavern glowed an eerie blue, resonating from the circuit walls.

“Speaking of hacking,” Failsafe spoke.“I have recently gained shared control of this cavern by infiltrating and integrating with the Vex mind connected to Nessus!”

“You… _what_?!”Both Exos were incredulous.

“… What, like it’s hard or something…?” Failsafe taunted.

“Never mind that, never mind that.”Cayde looked around.“How secure is your control?And also… why?”

“From my readings, the Vex mind completes one full check across all of its owned domains in just a few hours!Once it notices my security breach, it would likely adapt to cut me out!Now that you are here, I strongly recommend clearing the hostiles quickly, so that I do not need to design a new Vex virus.”

“Vex virus…” Banshee muttered, shivering.

“Don’t tell Asher that.” Cayde whistled. 

“Actually, the rude scientist helped!I convinced him to use this planetoid as an experiment, and he showed me how to compute like the Vex!“ 

A recording of Asher’s irritated voice played over comms. “‘It’s organic at its core, you understand!?You technically wouldn’t, as an AI, but besides that obvious fact, you have to at least _try_.Assume the perspective of the mind…”Asher’s recording trailed off as Failsafe spoke over it.“He spoke for a least two hours, I liked it very much!It’s very rare to have such an extended conversation!”

As Failsafe babbled, Banshee and Cayde took care of the goblins and odd minotaur defending the sector.She explained her methods for hacking the mind, all of which went over the two soldiers’ heads.The ambient light of the cavern grew brighter the deeper they went.This unnerved Banshee more than he wanted to admit out loud.The converted, mechanical features infecting and twisting the organic core of the planet reminded him too much of his own body.The Vex always unsettled him, and now he felt surrounded and outnumbered.

Cayde noticed his friend’s fretting and patted him kindly on the back.“Bet you can’t get as many headshots as me.”

“Vex don’t have heads for headshots.”

“Tummyshots, whatever.Let’s make a game of it, yeah?”

“…Yeah.”

The distraction helped.They soon found themselves at a vast clearing.The lakes of radiolarian fluid lapping at the platforms they stood on were blindingly bright.The Exos dimmed their light receptors to visualize the cave better.

“Banshee-unit, Cayde-unit, please try not to murder anything in the room!” Failsafe said.

“You sure about that, Failsafe?” Cayde drew his hand cannon.“’Cause I see a harpy up ahead and who knows what else is behind it.”

“Especially the harpy!” Failsafe was upset.“It is helping me as well!”

Banshee tried to convince himself the uneasiness in his mechanical gut was just some Exo program to keep him alert.He took a few tentative steps towards the center of the chamber.

The harpy ahead shimmered at its edges and transmatted away.It re-appeared an arm’s length in front of Banshee.Behind him, Cayde drew his gun and aimed, the soft swipes of leather armor barely audible.

“Friend… of captain?”The harpy beeped and buzzed, fanning its shell in and out like a blooming flower.Banshee willed his feet to stay planted, his arms to stay to his side.“Friend… of my failsafe?Good failsafe.”

“Yes?” Banshee answered, volume low.Cayde stepped closer to stand solidly against Banshee’s side.

“Friend.Friend.”The harpy appeared to nod.

“Please meet the memory of my old Captain Jacobson.” Failsafe introduced too cheerily.“This Vex experiment is all I have left of him!” 

Cayde was stunned.Banshee reached out as if to offer a handshake and pulled it back, realizing he’d rather none of the harpy connect with him.

“Failsafe…” Banshee started, a question.

“Captain Harpyson has helped me keep a surprise for you!”Failsafe sounded giddier than possible for an AI.“Please, follow him.”

“Yes.Follow.No guns.Safe.”The harpy’s “eye” protruded out as if to point at them.It then turned to float towards a glowing archway.

It was one of many searching looks Banshee and Cayde had shared over the life of their time together.With a shrug meant to boast confidence, Banshee took the first step after the harpy.Cayde holstered his hand cannon, hooked a finger at the back of Banshee’s scarf and walked in step.

The harpy took them through the archway, which opened to what appeared to be the natural core of the planetoid.The air burned hot against their sensors.The ground below their current platform was not visible, likely thousands of meters down and obscured by angry red smoke.

Just ahead of them, at the cliff-edge of the platform, lay a sleeping Cabal war beast locked in a makeshift top-down cage.The harpy floated curiously towards it.Its latent beeps woke the war beast up, who startled and began to snarl and snap at the bars of its cage.Banshee and Cayde stepped backwards, alarmed.

Failsafe couldn’t hold it any longer.“Banshee-unit, I have found a dog for you!

“…Well now.”Cayde spoke first, barely heard over the beast’s growling.Banshee’s jaw worked up and down silently.

“My observations of Cabal culture implied they would not notice just one of their many dogs missing.I was very wrong!In fact, I am eliminating another wave at the entrance of the Rift as we speak!”

“Didja steal the Emperor’s dog or something?!” Cayde asked, eyes never leaving the beast in case the cage gave in. 

“Hrmm.”Banshee finally spoke.“To be honest, woulda killed to protect my old dog too.”

“Yeah, but you also didn’t train your dog as some kind of sacrificial soldier bait —“

“What do you know?” Banshee turned to Cayde to reveal grinning eyes.Cayde rolled his.

The harpy floated back towards them.“Feed.Dog is hungry.”

Cayde pretended to turn his pockets inside-out.“Fresh out of treats, pal.”

“It’s a different kind of dog.”Banshee offered.

“Ya think?!”Cayde swiped his hand out for emphasis.“I don’t even _know_ what these things eat.Humans, probably.Exclusively.So, _this_ is what Sundance was keepin’ from us.”His ghost was noticeably absent again.

“Thank you, Failsafe.Really.”Banshee searched for words.“For uh, thinkin’ about this old man.”Banshee held a palm to his chest, genuinely touched.

Failsafe sounded pleased.“What will you name it?”

“I, uh…” Banshee stumbled over his words.“Think it should go back.To the Cabal.”

“Oh,”Failsafe replied.

“Means a lot you thought of it for me.”Banshee was searching.“But. This is someone else’s dog. Don’t think… don’t think it’s right to keep it.”

“ _And_ it could tear us all to shreds, soon as it’s out!” Cayde stated the obvious.Banshee chopped the side of his hand against Cayde’s arm.“ _S’true_!These things cut through Exos like butter!”

“I apologize!”Failsafe said.“I did not wish to introduce danger to you both.”

“S’appreciated.Cayde does enough of that already.”Banshee was fond.Cayde, emboldened, walked a little closer to the war beast which clawed at its bars.

“Sad.Misses pack.Lonely.”The harpy told Cayde.

“What, you or the dog?” Cayde had his arms crossed, considering the scene. “The dog does seem more like it wants out, than to hurt us.”

“Mind if we help, Failsafe?” Banshee asked.

“Please stay safe first!”

The two Exos walked to the other side  of the cage, backs close to the cliff edge.The heat of the core beneath them would have been searing without their armor.The war beast spun around to lunge wildly at them, blocked only by the crumbling cage bars.Captain Harpyson floated towards the archway entrance and whistled high.The war beast turned, attentive, then whined and scratched towards the entrance.

“Gonna lift the cage on three.” Banshee grunted to Cayde.

“Aye aye.”

They counted.The harpy whistled again as Banshee and Cayde tipped the cage roof towards themselves, bracing it as a makeshift shield.The bars facing the harpy’s side lifted up.The desperate war beast crouched low to the ground and wiggled through the opening, sprinting towards the harpy at high speed.The harpy floated up to the top of the archway.The war beast kept going without looking back at the three.

“He did wanna go home.” Cayde mused.

The harpy floated back down slowly, looking lost.

“Failsafe,” Banshee called. “Know this harpy long?”

“It found my new Captain first!”Failsafe explained.“It showed my new Captain the bones of my old Captain.It has assimilated some memories of my old Captain.But it is not Captain Jacobson.”

“Hrmm.”Banshee agreed. This reminded him of _something_ he couldn't quite place.

“The harpy reappeared once I took control of this sector!It was able to register my mission to find you a dog, and helped me capture the war beast when it strayed from its pack.I believe it parsed the concept of a dog from Captain Jacobson’s memories.”

“You’re a helpin’ harpy, aren’t you?” Cayde cooed and patted the side of the harpy with his soft gloves.The harpy seemed to lean into the touch.Banshee blanched at the sight.He was not ready for that kind of interaction with a Vex, corrupted personality or not.

The harpy escorted the two back to the entrance of the Lost Sector.Though the lakeside was cleared of hostiles, the harpy appeared to want to stay behind in the sector.Cayde waved awkwardly at it, then the two Exos took the short stroll over to Failsafe’s mainframe room.

“Real kind of you.Thank you.” Banshee opened.The two stood on the central ramp, facing the mainframe’s slowly spinning eye.

Failsafe groaned.“Meh… if I didn’t screw it up…”

“You didn’t.But, you don’t need to do anything.” Banshee leaned one hand on the side-rail of the ramp.

“Yeah, Asher probably says you owe him after one conversation, but we ain’t like that.” Cayde paced the room.

“Next time you get a big idea… let’s talk.” Banshee said.“Work together.No need for surprises.No need to get mixed up with the Vex. S'dangerous for you.”

“Alright.”Failsafe agreed. 

Banshee sensed she was holding something back.Was he supposed to discuss something else with her?A long silence followed.Cayde caught him lost in thought and walked up to him. 

“Think we need to get back to our jobs.”He clapped Banshee on the shoulder.“Failsafe, you gonna hold up alright?”

“Despite all odds, I have held up for centuries!I will continue to try my best.”

Banshee shook his head as if it would clear his mental haze.“See you soon, Failsafe.We’ll talk.”

“Please do not forget!”Failsafe called after him, and Banshee felt a heavy weight in his internals.

The trip had exhausted the both of them.The ride back was a restful silence as they recharged for their return to the Tower.

It was very late evening by the time they landed, so Banshee retired to his secret workshop.The virtual hole in his mind bothered him immensely.He searched through his scattered notes on various datapads for a common pattern.Much of it seemed encoded or redacted, curiously.

A fragment thought from his day suddenly registered.The Vex had copied elements of a human’s consciousness and memory.It wasn’t a perfect transfer like an Exo, but Exo consciousness wasn’t sustainable either.What it did remind him was that there was more than one way to build something.He looked over the display rack of his favorite gun models, all unique types, and reflected on creative problem solving.


	7. I'll cut this out of me if you'll cut this out of you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'll cut this out of me, If you'll cut this out of you,  
> And we'll both forget to bleed, because we've got no more to lose  
> I know we've been in a cage, but I'm sure we could be free"  
> Even Still I Want To, The Black Queen
> 
> "If the Splicers can use SIVA to create false gods… imagine what a good gunsmith could do with it." - Shiro-4

Banshee revved awake from a nightmare memory and found a firm arm unexpectedly wrapped around his waist.Curled on his side, his back was pressed against solid warmth.Inner nav registered the current location as “untagged”.His soldier programming kept him still.Better to assess before revealing he woke up to a potential enemy.

Banshee could not recall the last time he was this intimately close to another body.He found cuddling impractical.Rare, at his amount of years.Sure, most Exos had that programmed drive to be horny now and then.Didn’t make their clunky armored bodies fit together any more nicely. 

A soft scuffle, below his chin.Banshee risked a glance downwards and found a worn-leather glove he recognized as Cayde’s.The thumb traced lazy grooves against Banshee’s sternum-plate. 

Cayde had always been handsy.But Banshee was pretty certain waking up spooned in his lithe arms was not their typical routine.Probably a first.Was his memory getting that bad?Banshee felt something unsettling infect him.A fear his mind finally broke past a point of no return.

Hold on.He’d lived too many years, too many lives, to let another lapse in memory send him spiraling.He had a process for this.Gotta stay grounded.Observe all surroundings.Deploy the best tactics for the situation.

Earth gravity, so he wasn’t off-planet.He re-registered the weight of Cayde’s arm hugged around his torso, padded elbow locked against Banshee’s hip.The air smelled stale, like they were underground.His friend’s gloved hand splayed protectively against the thin linen covering Banshee’s chest.Their clothed legs were interlocked. 

He glanced downwards, past his cheek-plate.They laid on a thread-bare pad, a prison’s excuse for a bed.Must be nowhere near the Tower - somewhere untagged or otherwise scrambled.Some ruins in the middle of the Cosmodrome, likely.Had they been captured?Banshee’s defensive subroutines queued.He felt naked without his guns.Disoriented without navigation.Safer to keep playing asleep for now.

Start simple.Recent.Systems status check: no damage.So how did they end up here?He queried his last stored visuals, like grasping for scattering fireflies. 

He had been seated at the only table in his Tower quarters, lights dimmed, both hands worried a glass of stellar blue liquor.Check timestamp: last night, late.Above the glass, Cayde’s concerned eyes glowed the same shade of the liquid.Banshee concentrated.His friend leaned towards him on crossed arms, straining over the tabletop to speak intimately.The words were noise, out of reach.They were alone in his quarters - why the whispers?Cayde leaned further to tap Banshee’s forehead with his horn.Some kinda reassurance.Banshee’s thumbs, spinning symmetric circles into his glass, slowed.At Cayde’s soft touch he had lowered his tensed shoulders.

Banshee strained to fully load the visual. Cayde was comforting him, consoling him?

The scene ghosted his memory again.Leather whispered when Cayde stood up from the table, hand on Banshee’s shoulder for support.Cayde slid his palm down to squeeze Banshee’s bicep twice.Banshee recalled tilting his head towards his friend, but otherwise remained still at the table, burdened with conflict.What conflict?Cayde offered some gentle salutation and left Banshee alone in his quarters.He fully remembered the soft click of his door auto-locking, a carved resolve in his gut.He was committing to a dicey plan.But what plan?

Two-minus-one last night does not equal two this morning.Banshee could reasonably assume he was missing some pieces in between.He re-ran a systems status check.Again, no damage to his person.No recent regeneration in his logs. 

Cayde’s arm pulled tighter around him as the hunter audibly revved awake.Banshee’s processing went wild.They’d been friends forever, soldiers for longer, but he didn’t have a script for this.Better to stay quiet, see what Cayde had to say first - they were both pretty good at that.

“Buddy.”Cayde spoke quietly into the back of Banshee’s neck.“How ya feelin’?”

Despite his present confusion, his friend’s kind, familiar voice was a salve.If Banshee remembered just one thing: he trusted Cayde.

“Don’t know.Don’t remember…”Banshee was honest, slowly shaking the haze from his head.“We safe?”

“…Mhm.” Cayde hesitated, a brief nuance, it told Banshee enough.Cayde slid his palm gently down Banshee’s chest and rested it in the crook of his waist reassuringly. Banshee felt the space between his eyes buzz electric.Fear of the unknown, or fear of intimacy.Cayde acted calm, but his unusual silence implied risk. 

Banshee had never really been jealous of the Guardians and their burden, but he currently wished he could match Cayde’s power to help protect them both.He wondered over Sundance’s status.

Cayde’s hand left Banshee’s waist.Stalling, most likely scanning. Banshee scraped his internal comms logs for more clues. Three gloved fingers wagged in front of his face.

“How many fingers?”

“Too many.” Banshee grumbled and weakly swatted Cayde’s hand away, light laughter behind him.“You’re gonna kill me.”

“You’re right, I will, after I’m done savin’ your life.”Cayde huffed, a low register.

Warmth left Banshee as Cayde rolled onto his back for a full-body stretch.Leather and metal creaked with Cayde’s groan.Banshee tipped back towards him, stared at the concrete ceiling, and threaded his hands together to rest on his belly.Their shoulders pressed together. 

The windowless cell was small, the size of a small office or large closet.Converted from one of those from the Golden Age, it seemed.His confusion colored his fear.Were they to be ambushed in this cell at any moment by anything, he wasn’t sure he could defend himself.Yet Cayde’s performant ease suggested he may know more.

“Can we move?”Banshee dared.

“Can you?”Cayde bit back, and Banshee flinched.Wait, he couldn’t have meant it like that.Banshee looked over.Cayde was worried, and speaking quickly from nerves.He must not be able to fill him much in without alerting anyone possibly watching them in the cell. 

Banshee sat up onto his elbows and, other than the usual creakiness, felt surprisingly fine.He ran another internal diagnostic, mechanically opening and closing his palms as if searching for the slightest trigger.Cayde sat up with him, brushing the tops of his thighs and absentmindedly checking his stashed weaponry.He looked ready to finally tell Banshee what the hell was going on, ’til they were interrupted by the scraping static of a shock blade charging.

Without a word, Cayde jumped to his feet, transmatted a custom submachine gun into his open palms and tossed it to Banshee. Banshee stood and caught the gun like he was first built with it already in his hands.Cayde reached to either side of his own hips, spun matching hand cannons on his pointer fingers upwards to his shoulder-height and cocked them ready.With one shared look, they moved to either side of the only door to the dim cell.They knew this dance well.

Some poor vandal, ostensibly of House Devils, growled and shoved the door open blade-first.Banshee held fire while Cayde engaged - the hunter tossed his right-hand gun upwards, reached and grabbed the Fallen shock blade by its handle, twisting it quickly out of the surprise-weakened claws of the guard.The blade rotated like a clock hand towards the ground as Cayde flipped it to sear into one of the guard’s scrambling lower arms.The Fallen screamed and dropped his other matching blades.Cayde dropped the stolen one and caught his spinning hand cannon in the same fluid motion.

Banshee glowed.He felt a bit old for it, but this was his favorite way to dance.Cayde backed away from the door opening to allow Banshee to ambush from the right.The first scout had already dropped to the floor, but back-up was screaming fast towards them.Time for crowd control.

Banshee didn’t need to think to execute.He’d built this submachine gun, customized down to its rare-sourced nano-components thanks to generous Guardian collections across the system.It was practically an extension of his own body.

How could he help Failsafe feel as comfortable outside of her origin, build her something that’d feel as much a part of her as his guns felt for him?Memory finally clicked into place.He’d been touring her in one of the Quarantine zones in the Cosmodrome, transmitting through video comms.Showed her the destruction SIVA and its interations’d left on humanity and Fallen scavengers alike, shared his spotty grasp on history, explained why that technology was off-limits.She asked so many good questions… his head had hurt.

“BANSHEE!”Cayde screamed.He startled. Had zoned out halfway through painting their enemies with bullets and stopped firing.Cayde was livid enough - afraid enough? - to clang the barrel of his gun upside Banshee’s head to bring him back to Earth.Banshee grunted and fired rapidly on instinct, luckily towards the enemy.“Keep alive, friend, we. Are. Making. It. Outta here.” Cayde demanded between stellar headshots.

Banshee was back.They made quick work of the long hallway.The initial scout party was luckily small, or the nearby faction had severely underestimated the hunter and the gunsmith.Cayde wordlessly gestured Banshee over to a dark narrow corridor and they slipped inside to wait.

Once the scramble of clawed feet left their vicinity, Cayde stowed his guns and grabbed Banshee by either ear-plate.

“You with me?” Cayde whispered desperately.Banshee nodded, more dazed by Cayde’s reaction at this point.The headache was fading; the disorientation persisted.He waited, staring hard into Cayde’s frantic eyes for stability.

“Forgive me.Placed a simple tracker on you.”Cayde explained.Banshee recalled the soft shoulder squeeze Cayde gave when he departed the night before.“Knew you were gonna come here.Knew you were gonna be stubborn and share too much with Failsafe by way of example.Just wanted you to be safe.Catch you if you fell.Catch you if.. Fallen…” Cayde was so sick with concern he couldn’t compose the joke. 

It was sort of coming together, sort of, but not really.Fireflies...“Was here to show Failsafe our history.”Banshee murmured.“Wanted her to know… n’ decide for herself, she doesn’t need that, much as any of us didn’t.Wanna find a better way out for her.Get her to believe in it first.”

Cayde’s eyes softened, a thousand words in a glow of light.“Pretty sure we know why they made you an Exo.Your heart’s just too dang big to be organic-only.”He’d dropped his palms to grasp either of Banshee’s shoulders warmly.“Let’s get you home.Couldn't move you too far when you fell earlier, had to wait you out.Don't know if you'll wake up the next time."Cayde hid his overt worry with a perimeter check around them.Banshee nodded."And you can reply to Failsafe on the way back.She’s been spamming Sundance since you went dark.”

Cayde had quickly got them out of the old structure and strapped into the Queen of Hearts without many more bullets and fanfare.They settled in for the ride back to the Tower.

While recovering enroute, Banshee felt a well-traveled path weigh deep in his gut.His mind nursed the edges of a red-hot, censored suspicion - he knew this wasn’t the first time he'd considered it either.For all his issues with memory, his architectural encyclopedia was unprecedented.As if the answers were within him, but sealed and encrypted, programmed to self-sabotage should he query too close.The most paranoid of the Exos swore by such a conspiracy: that their resets were actually triggered by those who got too close to understanding their truth.It sounded almost religious. But Banshee very secretly felt he knew what they meant, without being able to logically explain why.

He felt the edges of a memory from this morning and teased it.A stab at his temple attempted to deter him from going further.He grabbed Cayde’s wrist next to him, and Cayde understood, entwining their hands.If he went too far, Cayde would feel the reaction and snap him back.He triggered the recall. 

Failsafe had pointed out how Vex regeneration and recorded SIVA regeneration patterns appeared to follow similar physics.Banshee felt the same sick drop in his gut to consider the Vex, but agreed, considering patterns from the Vex gun tech he had analyzed for Asher earlier.He’d reminded Failsafe why scientific records on SIVA were essentially obliterated on Earth, and how he worried she could become a target should her encrypted caches become knowledge to their enemies.She assured him her new Captain would protect him.He remembered smiling warmly at her earnestness, his headache fading.

She then asked, in addition to his research into paralyzing her current Vex infection, could he possibly help reverse engineer the invasion such that certain pieces of her could build on her directive?Perhaps it was similar to the rumors of Exo regeneration…

Whatever rogue subroutine in him triggered then, screaming static behind his eyes.He would have dropped were he standing up.Banshee squeezed Cayde’s hand until Cayde jerked their arms roughly to bring him out of it, spamming the console with his other hand to bring up the latest newsfeed and counteract the noise inside his brain.Cayde knew, he realized.He trusted Cayde with everything.

It took some time to recover from the daze, but slowly Banshee’s eye-lights restored fully to the present.He was exhausted, and his mind felt like it was on fire.

Sundance had rematerialized out of concern, and now bobbed anxiously close as if she could read a fever off Banshee’s helm.“Banshee, we’re almost home.”She offered.“I’ve already told Failsafe we’ve got you, alright?Want to give her a ping?”

He nodded slowly, feeling tethered to his friends and to the present again.“Failsafe,” he started his message.“I haven’t forgotten about you.I won’t.”


	8. The universe was made just to be seen by your eyes

"Arc energy's not just electricity.  Lot more finicky than that.  Fission." — Banshee-44

——

This was the worst-survived section of the Exodus Black hull Banshee-44 had yet seen.The Gunsmith flinched as his boots scraped through the ship’s debris.Failsafe shouldn’t have anything equivalent to pain sensors left active in this deconstructed mess, but Banshee felt discomfort in his own components anyway.

He was visiting Nessus alone, dragging a large gun-safe on wheels behind him.The Vanguard would never have allowed a non-Lightbearer to travel solo so far from the Tower in these times. He’d had to wait for Holliday to go off-shift, and only then he’d quietly cashed in some long-owed favors from the dock crew. 

Cayde would’ve given him the worst of it, so upon take-off, Banshee disabled off-world ranges on his comms.Temporarily, of course.He told himself it was more of a kindness to Cayde. The Vanguard were slammed with post-Red War cleanup and Cayde would have killed for some time away.But Banshee was not about to distract the Hunter from coordinating necessary restoration with the Guardians.Cayde worried extraordinarily over Banshee, more transparently than he believed.

The hull was cavernous by design, yet felt warmer than one would expect underground a planetoid.This particular chamber was insulated with earth in staggered piles, a visual record of the crash’s impact. Banshee looked closer at the damage in the ship wall closest to him.Cubic Vex wiring blinked in and out of the dark cracks.Of course they’d infected their radiolarian tendrils so deeply, even here. 

Failsafe had mentioned - what was it - over a 98% conversion of Nessus already?99?That last bit left must be her own mass, bravely resisting and actively combating their endless assault.The brilliant resilience of Golden Age AI.With inexplicably proud admiration, Banshee ran his worn-polished fingertips along the hull in front of him.

“Oh, that tickles.”Failsafe drawled in monotone.Her low voice echoed deep between Banshee's ears.

“Failsafe,” Contemplative silence broken, Banshee retracted his hand and clenched his jaw.“Your sensors… you can still feel activity in this section?”

“Unfortunately for the parts of me on fire, yes!” She chirped.“My sensor network was cutting-edge at the time of launch.We held several records for the largest regenerative matrix on a single vessel!Banshee-unit, do you know what ship might hold that title now? … Am I just… totally obsolete….?”

“Hmm…” Banshee set down his gun-safe to pace and mull his spotty memory.“Depends on what you’d define as a single vessel.I’ve seen the blueprints for dreadnought-class stations with canaries that span the edges of the system…None active, ‘least at my clearance level of awareness.” 

He leaned against a wall of hardened earth, arms crossed.“Your regenerative system is the key here.Don’t think anyone on our side has matched that technical resilience with any method less… risky.Than SIVA.S’why the Vanguard prefer you off the grid.Already too many official inquiries to study you. Not enough Tower folk on-hand post-war to keep research under control.”

Failsafe opened her audio feed, idly whirring and beeping.She’d heard this before.Understanding didn’t fix the loneliness.Banshee traced a jagged line in the dirt with his boot.

“Thing is…” he dug his thumbs into the lip of his toolbelt.“Your regenerative routines are likely as encrypted to you as mine are to me. Or the organic healing process to a humanoid.A human doesn’t direct the blood clot process - but they can count on healing in response to injury.Sometimes with mechanical help.But we can't manipulate the ‘source code’ or level of response - organic or otherwise.You, too, yeah?”

“Yeah…. Yeah.” Failsafe chewed over this.“ _Buuuut_ … I can _somewhat_ manipulate the energy distribution across my systems.Don’t think a humanoid can pull _that_ off.”

Banshee was warm, his mouth-light glowing brighter.“Point _was_ gonna be, we’re more alike than you’d think.But yeah.You’re pretty special, Failsafe.”

They shared a silence.Failsafe might not know how to process that kind of feedback.And again, platitudes didn’t exactly help her situation.Banshee tugged on the open thread.“You can modulate your energy channels.Assuming that’s arc. Tell me more.”

Failsafe was all too happy to dig into the details.She walked Banshee through the Exodus Project’s proprietary arc reactor technology at length, sending architecture docs into their shared feed for each stage of the energy process.Banshee absorbed her knowledge - though some parts were familiar.Some means of mechanical Light manipulation persisted in arc-powered guns he built to this day; other familiar concepts, maybe some lost whisper of his past.

Privately, Banshee was chuffed to hear Failsafe share.For his own sake too - him and Holliday could talk shop back home, but jumpships and guns were orthogonal industries after a certain point.Jumpships weren’t energy-aligned yet.It was refreshing to discuss Light-manipulation from a reverse-engineering perspective, with someone removed from the emotional attachment of Lightbearers.Bless their hearts an’ all. 

Banshee asked a few clarifying questions, brought up his own experience fixing up Riskrunner’s complex arc replication matrix.Seemed the Exodus reactors and that submachine gun were born of the same long-past tech breakthrough.As they chatted, he paced, and the toes of his boots knocked against the heavy safe on the floor. His chest, he realized. He had lugged into the hull. 

He kneeled in front of the chest and released the lock by instinct.With effort easy for an Exo, he shoved the lid open to exhume the repurposed interior.His favorite tools.Why were they here again?He ran his hand along the spine of a multi-tool he rigged himself, hoping to jog his memory.

“Got something for you.”He announced at an appropriate lull in their discussion.He hoped to work it out as he unpacked the case.Failsafe patiently waited for him to continue.Banshee removed the first layer of tools from the safe individually, settling them onto the dusted ground with practiced care. 

Below that first shelf, he found a dozen or so palm-sized, satellite-capable telemetry servers.He remembered building these over the past few weeks.Their accompanying wires were neatly braided and organized on the same layer.A small bag of endearingly-homemade cookies nestled in a voluminous green scarf sat between the servers and wires.

Ah.There we go.Banshee’d just spent two weeks receiving apparently random cookies from definitely random Guardians.He’d thanked them all the same, in confused politeness, and collected the myriad treats in the back of his kiosk.A few times, out of gut obligation, he’d give back a surplus gun he didn’t mind parting with - it just seemed the right thing to do. 

Banshee had only finally parsed it one snowy evening on his way back to his workshop-quarters, thanks to a very pushy Ms. Levante.He had been nose-deep in his datapad and speed-walking across the icy courtyard while calculating resource amounts for a requisition.Without warning, two mischievously giggling Guardians ambushed him from either side and enveloped his view in plush emerald green.Had he the speed to match his old soldier instincts, he might have startled and seriously harmed the Guardians in defense.Luckily, enough milliseconds passed for the Guardians to kindly tuck the new gift scarf down to his chin and cheer Dawning’s greetings. _Ohhh_.The Guardians stood back to admire their handiwork. Banshee’d caught between and past their shoulders, Eva waved warmly from her post.

His memory clicked.He’d set the scarf and cookies with the servers for a reason.He picked up one of the telemetry server boxes to juggle it lightly in his palm.

“It’s Dawning, on the Tower. And uh, here too I guess.”Banshee spoke out-loud, as if Failsafe were standing in front of him.“The Guardians, they always include me. Even if I... forget sometimes. Wanted to make sure you were included too.”

“That is a very kind gesture, Banshee-unit!My Captain has also brought cookies to my mainframe!… Which brought extraterrestrial super-roaches….”

“Oh, no,” Banshee said as he brushed the end of the gift scarf to conceal the cookies in the chest.

“Do not worry.The roaches have been excellent targets for the upgraded sentry cannons you installed!”

Banshee chuckled.“Thinkin’ like me, huh?”He considered the server unit in his hand.“So. Got some telemetry parsers here.I use these back home for analyzing the performance of my guns throughout the system.They got pretty long range for always-on streaming.” Without revealing his pride, he knew Failsafe would understand the technological significance of this small device.

“Fascinating!” Failsafe was honest.“With all of your Guardians, you must get so much real-life data for all kinds of conditions and planet environments.Does the live data give more accurate feedback than automated simulations?”

“Exactly.” Now Banshee was audibly proud, of Failsafe this time, and hoped it was obvious in his voice.“Now what we've got here, ‘ve modded these. They receive the same raw data, but analysis favors environment visuals.”

Failsafe was right there with him.“If I can access these servers, I can view live data streams.I can explore vicariously through any of your Guardians willing to share their experiences.Through their guns.”

With no other face to look at, Banshee looked intently at the servers in the chest with shy pleasure.“And their ghosts.And everyone I’ve talked to so far is very willing to, ah, stream to you.There might be some competition for your attention.Shaxx has discussed game-ifying it…”

“Oh, Banshee-unit.I have spent literal centuries decrypting clips of Vex simulation records and intercepted Fallen reports.So that I could see something other than…”In his mechanical guts, Banshee could _feel_ the chaotic hand-gesturing Failsafe implied for “ _all of this shit around us_.”Her voice softened as she went on.“To explore the system together with our friends is more than I even started with.”

A full pause.Banshee’s breath hitched, full of nerves.

“Thank you.” Failsafe finished with full emotion.“This really makes a difference for me!” 

Golden Age AI were curiously, beautifully, mysteriously programmed indeed.Exos too, Banshee thought furiously as he nursed a phantom burn across his cheek-plates and nose-bridge. At a loss for words, he set to work installing the servers.

“So. Chose this hull section, rather than your mainframe. Seemed to be least travelled due to the damage.”Banshee queued his tools throughout his explanation.“S’good you have sensor visibility here.But.Concerns me that you can feel minute touches like earlier.”He glared at his fingertips as if they’d burned her. 

Lights further down the corridor suddenly triggered on, catching in his peripheral.An arc conduction platform was now spot-lit ahead of him, rotating slowly with charged energy.

“I think you have made a very good choice.” Failsafe encouraged.“If you can see ahead of you, I have kept this additional reactor protected for centuries.It has miraculously not yet been manipulated by the Fallen or the Vex!I can channel energy here as needed to read the telemetry streams - thank you!”

In awe, Banshee looked upon the preserved Golden Age tech in motion, a visual manifest of their earlier empirical discussion.Failsafe paused, dropping her voice.“Also, it’s like, basic defense…. Turn sensor sensitivity way up when there’s movement… see which Fallen and Guardians keep messing with my stuff…”

She continued her drawl. "I’m _way_ better at multitasking than most Guardians hopping around this place.Especially the Cayde-unit…”Banshee hid a chuckle.“So… here’s some stuff…”

Several raw files suddenly transferred into their shared feed.Banshee skimmed the previews without improved clarity. Seemed to be a lot of encrypted code files.

“These are my design specifications for regenerative data storage and memory defragmentation.” Failsafe explained.Still not clear.She caught that, and pressed on.“My new Captain said you are researching approaches around memory storage and data resilience.This is everything I have on how my cores persist time-resilient data.I hope it will aid your inventions!”

Banshee was simultaneously embarrassed and touched.He couldn’t help the shame when his memory degradation were confronted outloud, though he appreciated the apparent tact Failsafe’s favorite Guardian used in communicating the need.

Reviewing the files, he noticed the payload included a symbolication file to decrypt the code.This was an extremely private “key” for any AI to share - even if relevant to just these methods, this “cipher” of sorts could expose everything to invasive hands.

“Your trust means a lot, Failsafe.”Banshee felt his head pulse, as if submerged underwater, like his heart was organic and beating sound waves out of his body.“This… you’ve helped me. More than you could know.”

"However, I _would_ like to know! Please explain further!"

Flustered, Banshee set back to work on installing the telemetry servers.

———

"Captain! Would you allow me to livestream  telemetry from your Ghost? I would like to go exploring!" —  Failsafe, Vicarious Exploration bounty


End file.
